OUR BRITISH HERITAGE AND THE SWORD OF ISLAM
Two hundred and twenty-six years ago young Warren Hastings was
circumcised....forcibly! Twenty-four year old Warren, along with
three hundred of his fellow English workers at the Old London
Company offices in Cossimbazar, India, was stripped, sodomized,
masturbated and publicly circumcised by the Moghul troops who
overran the British outpost. Warren watched in fascination and
horror as his prepuce was carried away in a bag containing all
three hundred freshly severed foreskins....trophies for the
Moslem Moghuls. Lanky, effeminately handsome Hastings, destined
to become one of Britain's great colonial statesmen, wrote of his
ordeal, "I, myself, was carved...."
Hastings' carving was not the first time an Englishman had been
circumcised at the hands of Islamic warriors, and it was not to
be the last time. The Arabs, Turks and Afghans as well as the
Moghuls have had their turns at plucking off British prepuces.
In southern India, Ma'ajoon, an intoxicating combination of herbs
was employed during the forced circumcision of captives,
producing stupification and causing the penis to rise; the
aphrodisiac made the ceremony easier and, by being performed on
an erect shaft, preserved much of the foreskin. Tippoo Sultaun,
the tiger of Mysore, used this method on British troops to make
certain they survived and, by incomplete circumcision, to brand
them only partially cleansed; quasi-Mohammedans. As a prison in
the Mysorean dungeons of Swendroog, Cl. Sir David Baird, a
prominent Scottish officer, was thus mutilated along with other
young subalterns. Baird and his fellow captives were seized by
powerful Abyssisian slaves, stripped naked and staked to the
ground, their limbs splayed wide. A white bearded old surgeon
carefully pried his long, craggy fingers into each British penis,
determining the extent of the doomed foreskin. Then the victims'
mouths were forced open, introducing Ma'ajoon. The wily old
circumciser waited patiently. Soon, the drug had taken effect,
and each officer experienced masochistic stimulation; teeth
gritting, fist clenching, eyes transfixed as they watched their
penises rise in anticipation. When each soldier's manhood stood
at full flower, the old man announced, "Praise the lord! Thou
art now to receive the ordinance of El-Knutneh, creating thee all
to True Believer." The razor flashed once over each penis. The
rings of flesh were offered to the fire as liberation to Allah.
Although circumcision is not mentioned in the Koran, the prophet
Mohammed himself is quoted as saying "It is an ordinance in men
and honorable in women." Many Islamic theologians have insisted
that Mohammed was born circumcised. Most Moslem youths, however,
must wait to become "True Believer" until sometime between their
adolescence and marriage, depending upon the sacred traditions of
the various tribes. In some desert areas, tribesmen include
circumcision in the wedding ceremony, using the bridegroom's
newly-flayed penis in a test of his "manly strength" when he
consummates the marriage. Arab boys look forward to their
impending circumcision, the right of passage, with eager
eroticism, as they mutually masturbate their still-uncircumcised
penises and retract their foreskins to show each other how they
will look once they become "men".
As with all Semitic races, the Arab tradition of circumcision
predates their modern religion. Historians usually theorize that
the practice of ritual circumcision among Semitics is derived
from ancient Egypt. Little is known about the daily life of the
Egyptians, but proof of circumcision abounds in temple reliefs.
Early Egyptologists assumed that all Egyptian males were
circumcised, but more recently both circumcised and uncircumcised
penises have been found on the unwrapped mummies of pharaohs.
Modern Egyptologists have pondered about just whom among the
Egyptians were circumcised and why". An early Masonic historian,
Godfrey Higgins ("Anacalypsis", London 1836), writes, "Priests
only of the Egyptians were circumcised." Candidates for
priesthood, and for circumcision, were usually chosen from among
puberty-age, virgin boys. Quoting modern Masonic historian,
Manly P. Hall ("Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians", Los
Angeles 1936), "In ancient Egypt learning was regarded as a high
privilege and education was under the direction of a small number
of individuals who were organized into bonds, pledges and vows of
secrecy....(a candidate) having applied at Heliopolis, was
referred to the Learned of the Institution at Memphis, and these
sent him to Thebes (where) he was circumcised."
Some historians have contended that the priests of Egypt were
circumcised as a sacrifice, a forsaking of "sinful pleasures".
However, the concept of sex as sin is not known to have been a
part of the Egyptian religion. What is known is that the
circumcised penis was a symbol of fertility, as can be seen in
temple reliefs throughout Egypt. According to Egyptologist, E.
A. Budge ( The Gods of the Egyptians'. Dover Publications), there
was a very early God of Circumcision whose job was to maintain
the fertility of the Nile banks. Another early Egyptian myth
contended that God circumcised himself and the blood from his
penis fell and created the universe. This myth is thought by
some to be the progenitor of the blood cults, in which animals
were sacrificed. and the blood covenants in the modern Semitic
religions. Another theory, quite unorthodox, holds that the
Great Pyramid (Cheops) was not a tomb at all (it contained no
artifacts, no mummies, etc.) but was a temple of initiation. The
young initiates to the priesthood were, supposedly, led single
file through the narrow passages receiving one initiatory degree
after another and, reaching what is now called the "Queen's
Chamber", they were circumcised and then proceeded up the Grand
Gallery towards the "King's Chamber" and their final degree. The
circumcised priests were the guardians of immortality; symbols of
fertility and life everlasting.
Sacred circumcision was not unique to Egypt in the ancient world.
According to Higgins the rite was performed on initiates to
secret societies in "Tarnul, Chaldee, Madura and Tibet". An old
text, "Asiatic Studies, Vol. II", refers to a Sacred Mystery
School in earliest Tibet which started the celebration of its
rites with the following herald, "Procul ! Hi 'ne procul c'ete,
profani!" St. Chrystostom (Homelia 33, in Matt.) says, "When we
celebrate the Mysteries, we send away those who are not
initiated, and shut the doors, a deacon exclaiming, 'Far from
hence, ye profane! Close the doors! Thy Mysteries are about to
begin. Things Holy for the saints, hence all dogs''. Disdain for
the profane (the "dog", the uncircumcised male) has trickled down
from the Mystery priests to, centuries later, their Arab
adherents. Amazingly, the Moslems have traditionally used the
term ''Dog'' when referring to the uninitiated; the
uncircumcised. "Christian Dog!'' is a slander which has echoed
across many a battlefield. Islamic fervor, almost from its
beginning, aimed its sword at the offending appendage. As Islam
spread its message across the then-known world, history's
greatest proselytism of the circumcised penis took place and
foreskins were shorn from Spain to India to the East Indies.
High Islam (600-1100 AD) was a period of great culture and
tolerance for the Moslem world, and that tolerance often extended
to conquered Christian populations. In many countries, Christians
were not forced into conversion, or circumcision, because only
uncircumcised males could legally be taxed and the Arab
Caliphates needed the money. The Moslem rulers of Christian Syria
and Sicily were among the most tolerant in all history only
Moslem Spain forced her Christian sons to shed their foreskins.
Indeed, Omar II (Umayyed Caliphate, 717- 712 AD) even argued
against religious circumcision .... a late version of St. Paul.
Then came the Crusades. The burly, marauding, rapine crusaders
who swept down from the European wilderness were truly barbarian
in the eyes of the Moslems. And, they were "dogs". Their clumsy
plunder was soon met, reluctantly, with calculated cruelty...and
Islam once again lost its tolerance for the uncircumcised penis.
Many a handsome Knight in shining armor was dispatched back to
his cold northern woods without the benefit of his "hood". The
situation deteriorated until, by the time, five centuries later,
British colonialism set its gaze upon Moslem ruled India, it was
"As in Biblical times...", quoting historian Allen Edwardes,
("Jewel in the Lotus", Julian Press 1959), "the slashed prepuces
of the Unbelievers, heaped in mounds following a great battle, in
accordance with the rigid martial code of the Moghul Empire, the
warrior rose in rank according to the number of foreskins he
brought in from the field." At this moment in history, British
prepuce met Sword of Islam.
As the mighty British Empire expanded and Mother England sent
forth soldiers, adventurers and government clerks, more and more
of her Christian sons returned home with Islamized penises.
Unfortunately, many did not return but instead bled to death as a
result of their foreskin amputation. Phimosis, the condition of
a tight or unretractable prepuce, seemingly had a high incidence
among the English, making cavalier circumcisions by Moslem
swordsmen risky, and as far back as 1661, the Old London Company
realized that her many phimosed employees were in mortal danger.
Knowing it was impossible to protect British foreskins from
zealot Moghuls, the British governor of Madras proclaimed that
all applicants to the Company be "bodily examined" and if a cadet
could not "strip his yard" the company surgeon was obliged to
"clip ye skin entire". Thus, in 1661, the first circumcision of
European Christians by European Christians was commenced, giving
impetus to three hundred years of routine circumcision in the
English speaking world.
The Old London Company records still exist giving explicit
details about who among her illustrious empire builders were
"clipcocks" and who were "pillcocks" (or, peelcocks;
uncircumcised). These terms gave rise to generations of English
schoolboy humor and playful contention, not to mention curiosity,
between possessors or the two styles of "cocks". For many
generations the "clipcocks", in the minority, suffered great
indignation. Robert Clive, the hero in the British takeover of
India, was angered when his phimosed penis was circumcised by the
company surgeon; "By God, had I known I was to come out here to
be clipped I'd have forsaken pork and procured me a scullcap!"
When taunted by the pillcock cadets in his own company Clive
"...did menace ye offending cadets with his pen-knife, asking who
should be the first in ye loss of his precious skin.''
By the early nineteenth century, however, the clipcock became
fashion among the British aristocracy, who wore it as a badge of
honor--proof of serving Throne and Empire in foreign service.